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Mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability in western countries accounting for 25 percent of all years of life lost due to disability and premature mortality. The World Economic Forum recognized that mental disorders have emerged as the single largest health cost, with global projections increasing to $6 trillion annually by 2030, more than diabetes, cancer, and pulmonary diseases combined. Most mental disorders (70%) start early in life (infancy, childhood and adolescence) and are the product of genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. One of the most studied environmental factors that predispose to Psychopathology is early life stress.

The knowledge of the factors responsible of inducing vulnerability versus resilience regarding early life stress exposure is of vital importance, and can have key preventive and therapeutic implications. Moreover, it has been recently shown that “positive” experiences, such as environmental enrichment, also shape brain development, though the induction of epigenetic changes that can even be transmitted from one generation to another.

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Mental illness is oddly stigmatized in light of the numbers. It is so prevalent that, in one its widely-varied forms, it will affect approximately one in four people. And in economic terms, its repercussion will be greater than that of heart disease and even cancer. On 25 and 26 October 2016 researchers from around the world gathered at B·Debate to discuss early stress and its relation with an increased risk of mental illness.